Study Finds Majority of Three-Strikes Inmates Non-Dangerous Addicts

The three strikes law was a reaction to heinous crimes such as Richard Allen Davis’ murder of young Polly Klaas back in the early 1990s.  Mr. Davis was a lifetime offender who had just been released.

Three strikes laws were designed to keep those dangerous criminals locked away.  But the reality is that most of the people actually caught in this net are not the Richard Allen Davis’ of the world.

In a study that may have a profound impact on a ballot measure that would reduce third strike offenses to second strikes for non-violent, non-dangerous, non-sex offense third felonies, the California Watch and the San Francisco Chronicle found that “Convicts imprisoned under California’s three strikes law are no more inclined to high-risk ‘criminal thinking’ than other inmates, but are far more likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol.”

The California Watch and San Francisco Chronicle obtained data from the state prisons department that contained psychological, substance abuse and education profiles of thousands of inmates.

They find that “the state imposes especially lengthy sentences on felons with substance abuse problems who have not necessarily committed violent offenses.”

In fact, “According to their profiles, these inmates would pose no more a threat to public safety than a non-three-strikes inmate.”

This fall, as the state continues to transfer non-violent and non-dangerous criminals from state prison to county jails, Proposition 36 on the ballot would modify California’s Three Strikes law to impose life sentences only when the new felony conviction is “serious or violent,” and authorize “re-sentencing for offenders currently serving life sentences if their third strike conviction was not serious or violent and if the judge determines that the re-sentence does not pose unreasonable risk to public safety.”

It would continue to impose a life sentence penalty if the third strike conviction was for “certain non-serious, non-violent sex or drug offenses or involved firearm possession” and maintain the life sentence penalty for felons with “non-serious, non-violent third strike if prior convictions were for rape, murder, or child molestation.”

If approved, around 3000 convicted felons currently serving life sentences under the current law, whose third strike conviction was for a nonviolent crime, would be able to petition the court for a new, reduced sentence.

According to the report, California has created prisoner surveys that rank “criminal thinking.”  Studies based largely on recidivism have shown that these are relatively reliable tools to gauge risk factors and psychological makeups.

Their chief finding: “The data shows that about one-third of all prisoners – including second- and third-strikers – need cognitive therapy to deal with their criminal tendencies, the impulse that drives them to break the law. But the need for substance abuse rehabilitation is overwhelming among inmates serving two- or three-strike sentences.”

They write: “Some prison reformers say the profiles show a vast need for additional money and focus on drug treatment programs. But for supporters of the state’s three strikes law, a person’s motivation for committing a crime is far less important that taking habitual criminals off the street for a long time.”

Mike Reynolds, two decades ago, spearheaded the drive for three strikes after his daughter was murdered.  He told The California Report, “Most offenders who have committed repeated serious or violent felonies have demonstrated that they’re not motivated to change their ways or get clean. Drug use, he said, can lead to future violent crimes.”

“The offenders that murdered my daughter were high on methamphetamines, and they had been doing them for God knows how long,” he said. “It was over a simple purse snatching, a low-level felony, something that you’d never put a guy in prison for 25 to life. They murdered her in a New York minute, pulled out a .357 Magnum, put it in her ear and executed her right on the spot.”

However, the critical findings belie this fear.

The findings based on the data, which consists of risk scores for more than 49,000 of the 134,000 people incarcerated in state prisons as of March, show:

“Drug addiction is the major problem among habitual criminals. Third-strikers scored ‘high risk’ for addiction 3½ times more often than they did low risk. Nineteen percent of these prisoners displayed no need for drug or alcohol treatment.

“In all, nearly 70 percent of convicts with a third strike show a high need for substance abuse treatment, compared with 48 percent of all inmates tested. The numbers are stark for third-strikers whose last offense was a burglary: 76 percent scored high risk for substance abuse.

“When measuring inmates’ ‘criminal thinking’ risk levels, which indicate whether they exhibit anger or antisocial behaviors that spur criminal activity, the data shows that the scores of third-strikers’ are similar to those of inmates with no strikes on their records. Overall, roughly 30 percent of all prisoners have ‘high risk’ thought patterns.”

The data, of course, does not demonstrate that there is no problem here.  However, as California Corrections (CDCR) Secretary Matt Cate told the reports, the state has no ability to figure out how to reform prisoners in order to prevent future crimes.  Even after realignment, the state is simply overwhelmed with prisoners.

But this policy comes with a cost.  According to a 2009 audit, the “additional years imposed under the sentencing law up to that point would ultimately cost the state an additional $19.2 billion.”

The state is responding slowly, but CDCR is finally developing “a plan to expand its rehabilitation services and do a better job of placing prisoners where those services are available.”

These changes are aimed at reducing recidivism – the highest rate in the nation, despite laws like three strikes, supposedly designed to curtail the rate.

“Consider second- and third-strikers … we’re not providing nearly enough rehabilitation … so how are they going to get better?” Mr. Cate said.

The researchers also interviewed Daryl Kroner, a criminology professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and former prison psychologist.

He said that “the data offers ‘pretty strong’ evidence that substance abuse treatment could have prevented some repeat offenders from becoming third-strikers.”

“If they came in once or twice and you treated their substance abuse,” Professor Kroner said, “the likelihood of them being a third-striker goes down substantially.”

However, drug rehabilitation is not the complete answer, either.

The report goes onto note: “Studies show drug rehabilitation curbs recidivism only if the treatment course is completed both in prison and when inmates are released. The most successful approaches involve treatment communities, according to both national studies and evaluations of California’s prison system.

“Within these communities, inmates live and undergo drug and behavioral counseling together.”

Drug rehabilitation is not a magic bullet,” said Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy. “It has shown positive results, but the defining characteristic of good treatment has been whether people actually complete the specified course of treatment, and that’s been a big problem.”

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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